Tough but Effective: Exploring the use of Remote Participatory Design in an Inclusive Design Course Through Student Reflections

Accessibility is a topic that is recognized as increasingly important in both industry and academia. In industry, there is a growing awareness of the importance of designing technologies that provide an optimal user experience regardless of the user's ability or impairment. At the university level, this awareness of the need for accessibility minded future technologists has encouraged the incorporation of accessibility and inclusive design content into a wide range of computer science and related courses. Despite this growing awareness, the actual process of teaching students about the needs and perspectives of persons with disabilities remains challenging. Within this paper we report on our experience teaching a graduate course on inclusive design with a specific focus on our experience incorporating a participatory design (PD) activity involving older adults as the course's concluding design activity. While students responded favorably to much of the course's content, learning was enhanced through the design activity which mirrored a real-world project and included three older adult (80+) co-designers. Despite the benefits of PD, students were at times overwhelmed by the workload and the logistical difficulties of working within a remote participatory design process. We believe that a review of our experience and student reflections may prove beneficial to those similarly teaching inclusive design and accessibility.